The present invention relates to an improved rocking chair design and, more particularly, to a rocking chair which is motor driven and has improved rocking characteristics for added comfort and physical benefit to the user.
Prior art rocking chairs have generally been improved in the areas of comfort of seating, durability and versatility rather than in an improved rocking motion and mechanism for attaining such an improved motion as the present invention is directed to. For example, numerous improvements have been made in rocking chairs to smoothen the motion by adding padding or the like to the bottom of the rockers as is illustrated by the designs shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 816,088, 888,224, 983,758, 1,233,006, 1,252,418, 1,435,432, 1,618,646 and 2,054,487. Likewise, improvements have been made to prevent damage by the rockers to a floor (such as is shown by U.S. Pat. No. 3,669,490) and to make a rocking chair folding (such as is shown by U.S. Pat. No. 3,026,143). Also, rockers have been motorized to automatically rock the chair and thus reduce the effort needed by the user to achieve the desired effect (see U.S. Pat. No. 1,985,131).
However, heretofore improvements have not been made in the rocking motion to inhance the effectiveness in the soothing motion attained by the user of a rocking chair. Also, in motorized versions, such as that disclosed in the above referred to U.S. Pat. No. 1,985,131, the motor is directly connected to the chair and moves with the chair and further is permanently interconnected to the base frame so that there is always a positive interconnection between the base and the chair, both of which features inhibit the natural motion of the chair.